Blood coagulation is the key process involved in both haemostasis (i.e. prevention of blood loss from a damaged vessel) and thrombosis (i.e. the pathological occlusion of a blood vessel by a blood clot). Coagulation is the result of a complex series of enzymatic reactions, where one of the final steps is conversion of the proenzyme prothrombin to the active enzyme thrombin.
Thrombin plays a central role in coagulation. It activates platelets, it converts fibrinogen into fibrin monomers, which polymerise spontaneously into filaments, and it activates factor XIII, which in turn crosslinks the polymer to insoluble fibrin. Thrombin further activates factor V and factor VIII in a positive feedback reaction. Inhibitors of thrombin are therefore expected to be effective anticoagulants by inhibition of platelets, fibrin formation and fibrin stabilization. By inhibiting the positive feedback mechanism they are expected to excert inhibition early in the chain of events leading to coagulation and thrombosis.